You might think about the questions: How complex a thing is a self? What, in Anderson's work, is a "grotesque"? How does empathy work? Do we carry others around inside us, so to speak? What is the relationship between how we look to others and how we feel and what we think and what we carry around within?
You might respond analytically by showing the relationship between how it's written and what it means. You might evaluate the story: does it succeed in what it seems to try to do? Do you like it? Respond to the short story personally: can you relate? How? Compare the story to others you've read. You might think about As I Lay Dying and King Lear (or other literary works or films). Respond by extending the story in someway: a sequel and prequel. Write a letter or poem or script in response.
Show that you have read the story, have thought about it, and have understood something about it (or even have made of use of it in some way).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Although the short story, “The Book of the Grotesque” is only five pages long, it is rich with representations of how an average person can be portrayed as a grotesque. Insightfully, the old man talks about truths. He mentions, “All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful.” However, a paragraph after that he says, “It was the truths that made the people grotesques.” This statement is both contradictory and true. Truth usually painful can also be perceived as a beautiful thing. Honesty in a situation or relationship is what most people thrive for. Causing pain through honesty and truthfulness could also be considered a grotesque. While he continues to describe the visions in front of him, he mentions the truths of “virginity and passions” and the truths of “wealth and poverty.” These differing ideas create a parallel, never touching, but he still believes, “Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.”
Another part of the story which stood out was, “The idea has got into his mind that he would sometime die unexpectedly and always when he got into bed he thought of that.” Directly after this sentence the author writes, “It made him more alive, there in bed.” This statement is almost ironic. The place where he feels most alive is the same place where he fears an unexpected death.
There was also a lot of imagery of the old and young. The old man was compared to “a pregnant woman, only that the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth.” Towards the end of the story the author writes, “It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man.” I’m not really sure what to think about my last two ideas; they were just a few things I noticed throughout the story that I felt were important.
My favorite part about the short story “The Book of the Grotesque” is that the author relays an idea about truth to the reader without tying himself to it. His narrator tells an idea that his character had, and in doing so, distances the reader from thinking too hard. Which sounds like a bad thing…
In “The Book of the Grotesque”, the main character, the old writer, has this great idea, one could even suggest he holds the truth about grotesques. But the writer, and the narrator who is retelling the unpublished book, says “The [subject about grotesques and truths] would become so big in his mind that he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn’t… It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man.” It is because of this passage that I appreciated the story, which at times was difficult for me to understand.
The clear idea in the short story is that in the search to discover a truth, one actually becomes a weak representation of that truth. The secondary idea I believe the author is saying, through the narrator and the writer, is that by spending too much time thinking, you loose the living. (Which is only slightly different.) The old writer was saved from becoming a grotesque because he still had the young soul within him, which was eager to live and not dwell upon thoughts and sadness. I believe the youth, woman wearing mail, or whatever was within the old man, was a truth, because it was untouched by the concerns of the old writer. Maybe the truth of aging, but I can’t really go further to back that up. (The old writer, however, was not a truth.) The moment the old writer investigates the energy/soul/person within, and feeds it worry or attention, it will become a grotesque like the many other characters in his mind.
I’m not saying that thinking is dying. We know that the old writer feels alive when he thinks, and the visions of grotesques prove that his mind is riveting. I’m trying to say that the unconscious absorption of ideas, truths, feelings, etc. is the living. It’s like reading a book and being in level with the author’s ideas (as we discussed in F Block) and then slowly understanding what was within. But constantly searching for the author’s ideas and truths, and losing the other values of the book like language and plot, causes a person to loose the living. This is why I like how the author of the short story chose to relay his idea. It was succinct, and never actually from the words of the old writer, which made the whole concept rather subtle and enjoyable to break down.
* ‘Living’ noun. The engagement in life. Not the noun for people who are alive…
Like what Meghan said, I like the passage where the old writer is describing how he feels like he will die unexpectedly, and then after describes feeling alive. "The place where he feels most alive is the same place where he fears an unexpected death." Meghan said. However, I wouldn't say the old writer fears dying. The narrator says "It did not alarm him." What I like this passage most for, is the descriptions about his heart in relation to his expected unexpected death. We know the man's heart is in poor condition because he was a hard smoker. However, his heart is never described as 'slowly thumping' or 'wheezing' or 'shakey' or any other word that is negative. Instead, "flutter" is used throughout the paragraph, which implies wings and vibrancy and energy. His weak heart is never thought of as a detriment to the old man because of the youth within him. Here, heart is more than just the physical organ. I believe it's also his soul, and by using "flutter" as a description, the author reminds the reader that the old man isn't weak, but alive.
This story manages to explain exactly what I've been trying to explain for more than a month in my literature essay and still leave me inarticulate. I haven't been able to make up my mind about what most of what's implied in it means, I just know that I can relate. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Stephen brings an existential crisis upon himself when he becomes frantic about not being able to grasp who he is in the world. He can only let it go when he learns not to care about defining himself as a singular being, but to allow multiple identities (multiple truths) to take hold at different times and slowly create an evolving perspective. To me, that is how existence works. It is impossible to limit myself to one consistent truth. I cannot rely on portraying the same character that I do at this moment five years from now, maybe not even two hours from now. Every person, color, season, smell, emotion, taste, object I encounter is a new truth that affects my present being both subconsciously and consciously. When Anderson described the figures that appeared before the writer's eyes as he slipped into sleep I thought about those swelling spots I see when my eyes are fully closed in darkness and the few moments I am allowed to see my mind wander before i become asleep. I think that's when it all comes together...when the multiple levels of present truths culminate. Anderson named those truth figures grotesques. I think it's important to note that the grotesques appear to the alive mind only slightly before it loses control in sleep. I'll figure out exactly what I mean by that eventually. I think the loss of self, or insanity, comes when the grotesques stop driving an organized 'procession,' as Anderson calls it, and become overwhelming.
Chloe wrote, "the youth, woman wearing mail, or whatever was within the old man, was a truth, because it was untouched by the concerns of the old writer. Maybe the truth of aging, but I can’t really go further to back that up. (The old writer, however, was not a truth.)" When I read the story I decided that the old man was pregnant with an untruth. My thoughts were that untruths are what fuel our energy. The concept of being something we aren't is an escape from what we think we are. I interpreted the oldness of the writer as a truth, and the young woman inside as an untruth that, like a fetus, feeds off of the being it grows inside until it is born. So I guess I actually didn't decide on the opposite of Chloe's take...I just complicated it until it became the same idea. To say the least, Anderson's writing has filled me. It'll take some time for me to be able to be clear about what exactly I'm filled with.
In “The Book of the Grotesque”, I thought a lot about what classified the grotesques within the old writer. When the narrator explained that the only thing keeping the old man from becoming a grotesque was the youth inside him, my personal image of what a grotesque is was altered. This thing that was inside the writer that kept him alive separated him from the other character we are presented with; the carpenter. The narrator calls the carpenter a grotesque because he lacks something as powerful as a youth inside him. The parade of people leads to the explanation of the writer’s theory on truths, and “It was the truths that made the people grotesques”.
I thought of a theme that reminded me of “As I Lay Dying”. Life/Death is brought up when the old writer feels alive inside. “He was like a pregnant woman, only the thing inside him was not a baby but a youth”. This piece of the story is later related to truth, and the grotesques are the connection between that and the life/death theme.
One part of this short story that was of particular interest to me was the passage where the narrator regurgitates the ideas of the old writer about how truths originated. “That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. .”. I found this perspective interesting. I had previously believed that universal truths were natural (such as the truth of virginity). But after reading this short story, it makes a lot of sense that it is us who invent truths. For example, the narrator mentions the truth of wealth and poverty. In nature we do not find a difference in social standing (not at least based on monetary value, or something similar). However, the human race has created truths such as these (perhaps out of necessity). I was a little confused when the narrator stated that the old man’s theory on grotesques. According to him, a grotesque is formed when a human takes a truth to himself and tries to live by it (“and the truth he embraced became a falsehood”). I suppose this means that if people try to define themselves by any specific means, they are not being real and thus they are not being what the claim they are. For example, if you proclaim yourself a maverick, in actuality you are not since you are identifying yourself with that label.
I really liked what Lucy said about various factors (truths) influencing our identity throughout our lives. I believe that it is impossible to identify yourself as a person at any one point in time, since we are constantly changing our ideals. I had a similar reaction as Chloe when the narrator states, “. . . he himself would be in danger of becoming a grotesque. He didn’t. . . for the same reason that he never published the book. It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man.” Like Chloe, I thought that this passage indicated that if the old man were to obsess over the TRUTH of grotesques, he himself would become a grotesque since it would become a falsehood (as aforementioned). Basically, I enjoyed reading this short story because it raised questions. So many, in fact, that I was forced to reread it several times before attempting to grasp the key concepts within it.
This little story was quite interesting, I thought. The imagery of the parade of grotesques was especially interesting. It made me think of someone with something like a multiply personality disorder, except instead of being a disorder it was like an organized version. Which I guess if you think about it that is what everyone in the world has. They have different personalities in different situations. They choose a certain one of the grotesques or “truths” to express at the time of need. I think where he mentions someone calling a truth their own and them becoming a grotesque themselves, is to say that the person here is doing the opposite of using certain truths at certain times. You cannot be only one grotesque, but many.
The organized chaos present in “The Book of the Grotesque” manages to seem frantic and haggard, yet sophisticated and completely on key with the human condition, and completely separate from it all at once.The story is obviously a work of fiction, and borders between a narrative and a stream of consciousness as the writer shifts between all of the different voices trapped within him. As these different voices manifest the author is caught between being the audience and the performer all at once. The author is aware of the different entities swirling just under his surface and is trying to settle himself within a balance, but finding that the grotesques within him are finding dominance. As I read I could not help but find a sort of relation to the author, and the type of crisis experienced. We have all had moments of conflict within our own heads, but imagining that magnified and multiplied by all of the different characters and caricatures the author is finding himself akin to.
Lucy’s ideas of “being pregnant with an untruth” was very intriguing to me, both in the way of wording it, and in the idea behind it. Pregnancy implies motherhood and maternal nurturing and the idea of nurturing an untruth is very interesting, but perhaps necessary to creating a truth through art.
Post a Comment